9-23-07: So far, I have looked at NSAs in the following categories: business, NGO, terrorist/rebels, trade unions, ethnicity, and religion. The only one I have not really looked at is crime. This seems to be difficult, as there won't be much information about such organizations, unless it is an established organization, like drug cartels or the Nigerian scams. I think my research so far has been fruitful. I believe I have identified enough NSAs in all ten of my countries that I could catalogue them and assess their value and influence, to a certain degree.
9-29-07
I just backed up the wiki. It takes about two seconds, which is nice. Right now, I am putting most of my research on the wiki. I have about half of it up there now. It really is not taking too long to transfer from zotero to the wiki. I would have done it before the weekend, but some personal things beyond my control occurred this week, and so I am a little delayed.
9-30-07
Backed up. the size jumped from 800 kb to about 3,000. And I put up all my info on the wiki. Prettaaaaay, prettaaaaay, prettaaaaay good.
10-2-07
So, I was thinking that we might have to write SFAR's for each country, but i had not thought of how to do it. I was thinking something along the lines of doing a link chart, using all the data we have found thus far, and writing an sfar detailing the chart. After this mornings meeting, i still think we can do a link chart, but our SFAR's will not necessarily be using that structure. instead, we will do country level analysis, and go through indexes and find ranking data. using the conceptual model Prof. W. drew on the board this morning, I recreated it in mindmeister, and then found several more ranking indexes. so, tonight, I have already finished about half of relevant and important rankings for each country, and I will finish this tonight. I just needed to write this while I was being contemplative.
Finished for the night. I had a nice little eureka moment earlier. Things just clicked. I posted it under discussion in the home page with the heading good and bad NSA.
10-3-07
Mark, Adrienne, Brittany and I met tonight to discuss the SFAR format. Mark and I got into a long discussion about some semantics, and how we determine what the rankings mean in terms of the role of NSAs. We had some initial disagreements, but we were able to make headway in how we wanted to articulate our SFAR. So, now I am writing down what each database means for NSAs.
backup created
10-10-07
amazingly, so much has happened in the past week. my thinking process for the sfars was to come up with what each index meant for non-state actors. i did that, and that is the page named "what the indexes mean." my thinking was, if we understand what these indexes mean for non-state actors, all we have to do is then input that into our sfars. so i proceeded to do this for each country. my mistake was assuming that each index would have equal weight, and translate well for each country. it does not. plus, simply stating what a country's rank is doesnt say much. so what mark did, rather brilliantly, is come up with a system for evaluating each index, assign a number representing the country's status in that index, using its percentile in the specific index. what this does is put the indexes on equal footing, and makes things uniform. now, after discussing things with wheaton, we understand that that coming up with a baseline number for each country, using numbers generated from political indexes, economic, etc. will allow us to better say what non-state actors are likely to be (influential and what not). so mark has been able to generate these numbers quickly in excel. its hard for me right now to adequately express it. but we did find a database that we might be able to use as a baseline, and then add all the other indexes as correlates, and have them supplement our sfars as anecdotal evidence. this is really exciting stuff, because it allows us to say things for all of sub saharan africa, as well as each individual country. what this means for me, is that i have to completely re write all my sfars. bummer, i know, but i am so glad we are on the right track.
11-11-07
so, i just made my 1,000 edit on the wiki (this will be 1,001). In the month since the last wiki, I have made soooooo many changes. As a team, we created the role potential spectrum model, did all our analysis, and created this amazing wiki page. All the changes are documented fully in the Process and Methodology page. This has been an incredible experience for me, but I am glad to be finished. I don't think I have ever been so proud of a team, and of a final product than this project.
9-29-07
I just backed up the wiki. It takes about two seconds, which is nice. Right now, I am putting most of my research on the wiki. I have about half of it up there now. It really is not taking too long to transfer from zotero to the wiki. I would have done it before the weekend, but some personal things beyond my control occurred this week, and so I am a little delayed.
9-30-07
Backed up. the size jumped from 800 kb to about 3,000. And I put up all my info on the wiki. Prettaaaaay, prettaaaaay, prettaaaaay good.
10-2-07
So, I was thinking that we might have to write SFAR's for each country, but i had not thought of how to do it. I was thinking something along the lines of doing a link chart, using all the data we have found thus far, and writing an sfar detailing the chart. After this mornings meeting, i still think we can do a link chart, but our SFAR's will not necessarily be using that structure. instead, we will do country level analysis, and go through indexes and find ranking data. using the conceptual model Prof. W. drew on the board this morning, I recreated it in mindmeister, and then found several more ranking indexes. so, tonight, I have already finished about half of relevant and important rankings for each country, and I will finish this tonight. I just needed to write this while I was being contemplative.
Finished for the night. I had a nice little eureka moment earlier. Things just clicked. I posted it under discussion in the home page with the heading good and bad NSA.
10-3-07
Mark, Adrienne, Brittany and I met tonight to discuss the SFAR format. Mark and I got into a long discussion about some semantics, and how we determine what the rankings mean in terms of the role of NSAs. We had some initial disagreements, but we were able to make headway in how we wanted to articulate our SFAR. So, now I am writing down what each database means for NSAs.
backup created
10-10-07
amazingly, so much has happened in the past week. my thinking process for the sfars was to come up with what each index meant for non-state actors. i did that, and that is the page named "what the indexes mean." my thinking was, if we understand what these indexes mean for non-state actors, all we have to do is then input that into our sfars. so i proceeded to do this for each country. my mistake was assuming that each index would have equal weight, and translate well for each country. it does not. plus, simply stating what a country's rank is doesnt say much. so what mark did, rather brilliantly, is come up with a system for evaluating each index, assign a number representing the country's status in that index, using its percentile in the specific index. what this does is put the indexes on equal footing, and makes things uniform. now, after discussing things with wheaton, we understand that that coming up with a baseline number for each country, using numbers generated from political indexes, economic, etc. will allow us to better say what non-state actors are likely to be (influential and what not). so mark has been able to generate these numbers quickly in excel. its hard for me right now to adequately express it. but we did find a database that we might be able to use as a baseline, and then add all the other indexes as correlates, and have them supplement our sfars as anecdotal evidence. this is really exciting stuff, because it allows us to say things for all of sub saharan africa, as well as each individual country. what this means for me, is that i have to completely re write all my sfars. bummer, i know, but i am so glad we are on the right track.
11-11-07
so, i just made my 1,000 edit on the wiki (this will be 1,001). In the month since the last wiki, I have made soooooo many changes. As a team, we created the role potential spectrum model, did all our analysis, and created this amazing wiki page. All the changes are documented fully in the Process and Methodology page. This has been an incredible experience for me, but I am glad to be finished. I don't think I have ever been so proud of a team, and of a final product than this project.